Author Archives: markdowe1

Britain, Government, Politics, Society

Disaffection is threatening our free and stable society

BRITAIN

FOR WHOM really was the winner in last week’s by-elections? “None of The Above” Party seems a more appropriate declaration given that 60 per cent of the electorate did not bother to exercise a right to vote in either of the seats being contested for. That’s a democratic crying shame. We elect our MPs about a dozen times during our adult lives.

Some will not try to diminish the Tory failure, but it was considerable. Nor should we assume that Labour is too weakly supported that it cannot win a General Election, for it is not. Or that the Reform Party is not a major threat to Rishi Sunak, because it is. Disaffected Tories are moving in their droves to Reform, unsettling for the Conservative Party if they have ambitions of holding on to power. More than ten per cent of Conservatives have already migrated. Yet, these simple truths are mere squalls on the surface of British politics.

Troubled depths lie beneath, which are full of potential dangers for our stable and free society.

Politics in the UK has fractured over the past quarter of a century. Until the eras of Thatcher and Blair, this country was still divided politically on much the same lines that had divided it in 1950. One big party stood for the industrial working class, the inhabitants of council estates and 19th Century terraces, and also for a small layer of city-dwelling radical intellectuals. The other stood for tree-lined suburbs and the countryside, white-collar workers, for small businessmen and professionals.

But by the time Mrs Thatcher had finished, and Mr Blair had begun his swinging social revolution, we were a different country.

All the old frontiers had melted away, just as the Iron Curtain bulldozed down made headway for a new Europe. Vast new problems grew and overshadowed the old ones: the replacement of industrial jobs with high-tech work or with call-centre drudgery, the flood of women into the workforce and away from the home, the astonishing expansion of universities, the transformation of family life, the computer revolution, and, perhaps above all, large-scale immigration.

Loyalties shifted and blurred, as the Brexit referendum showed beyond doubt. Politics had become troubling and deeply divisive.

In spite of that, Tory and Labour politicians still sought to win votes by using the old spells and incantations, which no longer worked – more police officers on the beat on one side, ever-expanding promises to fix the NHS on the other. The wider public, unfooled, look on with increasing dismay.

How is it so many pledges and promises are never fulfilled? Why is a rich country, full of skills and talent, now so lacking in good government that we navigate our lives amid a maze of potholes and crumbling roads, unprotected by an absent police force, and the many who are stuck in queues for everything from a dental appointment to hospital admission for a medical procedure or major operation? Public angst is growing.

We should not, however, despise our politicians; of whatever affiliation they may be. We live in an ancient and free democracy, and it should be allowed to thrive. Most people will understand that politicians bear a heavy responsibility and in many cases are personally devoted to serving their constituents. The great majority of parliamentarians are honest and well-intentioned.

But something has gone badly amiss in their relationship with those they represent. If left uncorrected, and the widespread discontent and disengagement now rife among us are not assuaged, a portal will open through which dangerous extremists can enter mainstream politics.

Such extremism is personified in the worrying figure of George Galloway, who appears now to have a real chance in the chaotic Rochdale by-election. As a lone maverick, Mr Galloway can do little harm. But what if other, similar figures, begin to profit from discontent and disaffection? A gateway certainly exists for trumping exploitation.

Our mainstream politicians should stop trying to placate voters with mere slogans and instead recognise that their concerns are real and pressing. The whole point of democracy is that such discontents be addressed.

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Britain, Gaza, History, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, United States

Israel has been drawn into a trap by Hamas

MIDDLE EAST

Intro: Following the events of October 7, Israel’s enraged response has plunged the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian disaster. The southern city of Rafah has suffered the brunt of the crisis with a five-fold population increase, vital resources lacking, and no sign of the violence abating. What can be done? Analogies are being drawn with Nazi Germany

AT the southern end of the Gaza strip, lies the city of Rafah. It might be the most densely populated place on Earth right now.

Five months ago, before the bloody atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7, and then Israel’s enraged response since, the city was already overflowing with people.

Since then, its population of around 280,000 has increased five-fold to almost 1.5 million, crammed into 23 square miles. Refugees are living ten to a room, if they are lucky enough to have shelter at all. Most are on the streets.

Vital resources including medication, fuel, food, and water, are in desperately short supply, and what little exists is ruthlessly controlled by the Hamas criminal network.

Rafah is also a terrorist stronghold. If Israel remains intent to wipe out the leaders of this fanatical Islamist regime, Israel Defence Forces (IDF) will have to attack the city.

The cost of civilian lives will be heavy. And the cost to Israel could be catastrophic, too, if Western governments withdraw their increasingly equivocal support. It really is not clear just how much support Western nations are willing to give Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, is under intense pressure domestically to finish off Hamas. But, if he attacks Rafah, he will be falling into a trap.

Israel is facing a hate-filled enemy willing to use human shields. Hamas’s ringleaders are happy to see women and children slaughtered, because they think this will provoke an avalanche of Arab rage that will finally wipe Israel off the map. The Palestinian warlords only have one aim.

For those looking on in horror from around the world, events in Gaza have close and unsettling parallels to the destruction of Berlin or Dresden in Germany at the end of World War II: one Hitler’s capital, the other a military transport hub, with beautiful baroque architecture housing an incalculable number of refugees.

Stalin’s Red Army fought its way to Hitler’s bunker while the RAF razed much of Dresden to the ground in a series of firebomb raids, killing some 25,000 civilians. The Allies were deeply divided over this tactic, and historians still argue over its morality.

Nazism posed a dangerous global threat. By contrast, many perceive the war in Gaza as nasty but local. Israelis, however, living under the shadow of the Holocaust, recognise Hamas as a mortal threat, and one with strong regional support.

For most Israelis, then, debate of any kind is unnecessary. They know that if Hamas is not defeated and crushed, their country is doomed.

This is a war of survival. The October 7 massacre was so steeped in wickedness that Israelis are justified in believing the terrorists want to see every Jew perish in much the same way: raped, burned alive, dismembered. That’s the level of fear and evil that Israelis are faced with.

Prior to events in October, Netanyahu was widely seen by the electorate as a paranoid and corrupt politician clinging to power to avoid prison. But since the Hamas rampage, most in Israel now blame him for not being tough enough on Palestinian violence.

Hamas strategists assumed that their atrocities would draw Netanyahu into a trap. Israel would hit back hard, but its Western allies would forcibly shudder over civilian casualties. Our leaders held their nerve while the IDF invaded from the coast and the north of the Gaza strip, an area 25 miles long and as little as seven miles across at some points. Now, though, the West is losing its stomach for this campaign.

Many of the 29,000 killed so far have been non-combatants. In Gaza City to the north, every other building is reported to be destroyed. Bordered on one side by the Mediterranean, with all exit routes blocked and with residents unable to flee into neighbouring Israel, many had no choice but to trek south to Rafah.

Once in Rafah, they can migrate no further. Egypt has closed its narrow border, fearing a massive influx of Hamas fighters among displaced refugees, risking an Islamist insurrection in Egypt that would overthrow the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

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SO, what is to be done?

In this international crisis, each country is thinking first of its own priorities.

In Washington, President Biden’s team are all-too conscious of the forthcoming election in November.

The pro-Israel lobby in America is traditionally very powerful and the Jewish electorate tends to back the Democrats – but the growing number of Muslim-American voters could turn crucial swing states against the incumbent.

In Britain, the Labour Party is undergoing its most serious internal crisis since Keir Starmer took over, with the hard-Left demanding its MPs endorse an immediate “ceasefire” – a euphemism for Israeli surrender.

On Britain’s streets, and across the West, hundreds of thousands of marchers have been shouting inflammatory and often vile anti-Semitic slogans for months. A radical sub-culture is definitely spreading, with race hate at its core.

The disgraced former Labour candidate in the Rochdale parliamentary by-election peddled obscene conspiracy theories that Israel encouraged the Hamas massacre, and that all the Islamic world is under attack by Jews.

An audience in a London theatre hounded out a Jewish man who refused to cheer the Palestinian flag. They were whipped up by the comedian on stage, shouting “Get out” and “Free Palestinian” with added expletives. That is a scene redolent of Berlin in the 1930s.

Netanyahu’s ferocious counter-response to the provocation in October has led to a humanitarian disaster in Gaza, but that has played into his enemy’s hands. International courts are considering charges of “genocide” against the Israeli government and military. A Dutch court has already blocked the export of spare parts for the Israeli air force.

Pressure has begun to mount on Jerusalem to accept an “immediate pause in the fighting”, a polite phrase for a ceasefire. British Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, is adamant one can be reached. He is seen as a friend of Israel.

Netanyahu, however, shows no signs of responding to such appeals. The Israeli PM and his generals appear determined to carry on at all costs. It does beg the question: what would constitute an Israeli victory?

After all, even if the IDF does succeed in capturing or killing the leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, and his fighters, this would then leave them with the problem of what to do with the 1.5 million embittered Palestinians left to contemplate a miserable future in the devastated Gaza.

Faced with a similar quandary in the closing months of World War II, the Allies opted for a strategy of winning hearts and minds – distributing medicines and restoring water supplies in western Germany even before Berlin finally surrendered, and then funded a massive restructuring programme via the Marshall Plan.

In much the same way, the world’s best hope now might be a deeply counterintuitive one. If Netanyahu reverses his blockade of aid and lets humanitarian relief flow into Gaza – food, water, medicine, and fuel – he might just persuade Palestinians that Hamas is their mortal enemy, not Israel.

True, a rump of Hamas insurgents might seize many of the aid lorries. Those who need this precious cargo most, the women and children, would likely get very little.

But it would be an important gesture for Israel to say: “We do not hate all Palestinians – only our hate-filled enemies who want to kill us.” Such slim hopes are the best we have – and it will take the most dexterous statesmanship, as well as military planning, to avert a host of new catastrophes.

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Britain, Defence, Government, Military, Politics, Society

Defence spends millions on woke policies

BRITAIN

Intro: The Ministry of Defence’s “diversity networks”, some 93 in total, are rightly coming under attack

COLONEL Tim Collins OBE, the former Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, wrote publicly this week and rightly attacked the multitude of woke policies that have been implemented by the Ministry of Defence in Britain.

Of all the ceremonies that bind the British people to their past, he says, none is more emotive than Remembrance Sunday.

Powerful and enduring, it pays tribute to the millions of ordinary people who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Some on the Left of politics, who fail to understand that our Armed Forces protect us all, have long sought to do away with this annual and time-honoured communion with the nation’s fallen and the poppies that symbolise our attachment to it. For them, the ceremony is seen as a jingoistic sham.

Not surprisingly, and with thankful regard, our men and women in uniform still enjoy widespread support, so any such move by the Left has always been impossible to implement.

Now, however, there is a new attempt to undermine the central role of the military – and, shockingly, it has come from within our Armed Forces.

According to a British Army document that has come to light, entitled “Policy, Guidance and Instructions on Inclusive Behaviours”, soldiers have been ordered to avoid “religious elements” in Remembrance Day services. The document states, “Acts of Remembrance should be agnostic.” Unorthodox and bizarre to say the least.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, recently appointed to Defence, who is Jewish, is said to be “furious”. It has been reported that he is not offended one bit by Christian remembrance services and believes it’s at the core of our nation’s history and who we are.

Mr Shapps is right, of course, to appreciate the central importance of Remembrance Day, but it is by no means the only target the woke warriors have in their sights.

The current fad for “diversity” and “inclusion” is one of the most effective weapons in the hands of those who would seek to undermine our military.

This week, it emerged that defence spending on personnel devoted to these causes has doubled to nearly £2 million over the past five years.

These modern virtues – which may have their own merits in certain settings – have an emphasis which is actively inhibiting the Armed Forces from recruiting the very people who have traditionally filled its ranks: white males.

The phenomenon first came to light in 2022 when it was revealed that the RAF’s head of recruitment had quit in protest at what was deemed to be an “unlawful” order to put female and ethic minority candidates onto training courses ahead of white men.

The top brass evidently felt that it was more important to increase the percentage of Air Force personnel who were women or from non-white backgrounds than to select the candidates best suited to carry out their duties.

Currently, white male servicemen are increasingly being made to feel deeply unwelcome by being drilled in “unconscious bias” on courses which convey the unspoken message that they are inherently racist, sexist, and homophobic.

Sure, nobody wants any of our Armed Forces personnel to be sexists, racists, or bigots. But when national security is at stake, pandering to the woke brigade should not be the priority.

To his credit, Shapps has again bemoaned this practice – seen in all three services – as an attempted takeover by activists with “a political agenda”.

The Defence Secretary has held crisis talks with military chiefs to address the “extremist culture” that promotes diversity and inclusion at the expense of national security.

And, perversely, there is already evidence that this approach is having a damaging and entirely counterproductive effect on recruitment.

Despite the fact the Army has been cut from 100,000 soldiers in 2010 to a planned complement of 73,000 today, it is troubling that it has been unable to find enough recruits to meet even this diminished total.

Worse still, so many of our service personnel are not fit for duty because of injury or other issues that the overall muster at any one time is little more than 50 per cent of the desired figure. This means that we no longer have an Army capable of protecting the nation.

The same is also true of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The £3 billion aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales has finally departed for a major NATO exercise this week, but only after an embarrassing last-minute delay. Its sister ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is still in port with a broken propeller shaft.

The UK is also decommissioning ships, even ones recently refurbished at great expense, because too many servicemen and women are leaving. Scandalous, yes. But more than that, it is dangerous.

If the primary role of the military is to provide an inclusive experience for people of different genders and religious persuasions, then it neglects its duty of care to the nation.

If it devotes more energy like this by ensuring soldiers, sailors, and airmen/women, feel more comfortable about expressing their sexuality than defending our shores, it is simply not fit for purpose.

The MoD’s 93 diversity networks, includes seven concerned with LGBT issues, 14 with race, and ten with gender. What will these avail us in the event of a deadly attack? Easy answer. Not a jot.

Tolerance is one of the great strengths of British society – and, of course, like Colonel Collins, many of us will be proud that women, gay people, and people from ethnic minorities, serve their country in uniform.

China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and other despotisms are all intolerant. But this great British value must not be used against us.

In an effort to increase ethnic minority representation in its officer corps, last March the British Army issued a “Race Action Plan”.

The ends may have been reasonable, but the means were not. The document advocated reducing the level of vetting for officers from Commonwealth countries.

Security-clearance vetting, it claimed, was “the primary barrier to non-UK personnel gaining a commission in the Army”. Military rigour has therefore been forced to give way.

Colonel Collins has first-hand experience of where that can lead. In March 2003, at the start of the Iraq invasion, he was with his men in Kuwait.

A series of explosions shook the air, as an Islamist renegade soldier in the U.S. 101st Airborne Division threw four hand grenades into tents where his comrades were sleeping, and then opened fire with a rifle. Two men were killed, and 14 others seriously injured.

Traitors within the ranks who evade security checks are an ever-present danger.

In the last few days in Mogadishu, Somalia, four soldiers from the United Arab Emirates, and one from Bahrain, were killed – murdered by the very recruits whom they were training to protect civilians from terrorist attacks.

How had members of the Al-Shabab terror group managed to infiltrate the camp? Because the level of security checks had been reduced – exactly what is being proposed for our own Armed Forces. Inclusivity should never trump commonsense.

Overwhelmingly, the young people who are eager to enlist and serve in His Majesty’s forces are white and male. Some will be from backgrounds where a life in the Forces is a family tradition.

Others have grown up in an education system that penalises them for being white, male, and working-class. They want the chance and opportunity of adventure, comradeship, and travel.

Britain needs these men. If we reject them because they fail to fit the military’s vision of inclusion and diversity, we will soon have no protection against our enemies.

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